T. Peter Kingham, MD is an Asst. Attending surgeon in the Division of Hepatopancreatobillary Surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He completed the surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2010. During his residency at New York University he spent two years performing cancer research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He has participated in missions to Malawi, Nigeria, Mexico, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Tanzania, and was a Yale/Johnson & Johnson international health scholar for surgery. Dr. Kingham is an active member of the Association for Academic Surgery's Global Health Committee and has been a faculty member on the AAS' Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course in West Africa. 

Dr. Kingham has an M.D. from SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine and a B.A. from Yale University. 



Adam L. Kushner, MD, MPH, FACS is a board certified general surgeon who practices exclusively in developing countries and is a Lecturer in Surgery in the Department of Surgery at Columbia University and an Associate in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . He has worked as a general surgeon and educator in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Liberia, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Sudan; led landmine assessment missions to Azerbaijan and Kosovo; conducted human rights assessments in Iraq; taught trauma care and landmine injury management in Colombia, Ecuador and Nicaragua; and worked as a health specialist following the 2005 tsunami in Indonesia. Since 2003 he has participated in US military training exercises as a subject matter expert for human rights and humanitarian assistance issues and is a member of the planning committee of the World Health Organization’s Global Initiative on Emergency and Essential Surgical Care. 

Dr. Kushner completed his general surgery residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center - San Antonio, has an M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins, and a B.A. from Cornell University.



Ann Colley is Executive Director and Vice President of The Moore Charitable Foundation, established by Louis Bacon in 1994, which has as its mission environmental conservation with an emphasis on land and water conservation. The Foundation is considered a leading voice for responsible conservation on local and national fronts and has 90 conservation grantees ini its portfolio. Ann is on The Land Trust Alliance National Council and Waterkeeper Alliance Board of Trustees. She is on the Board of Directors of Surgeons OverSeas (SOS). The What is Missing? Foundation, Riverkeeper and Group for the East End. She serves on YouthAIDS Leadership Council as well as Conservation International's Chairman Council. Ann lives in New York and has two sons, Dan, 24 and Davis, 11.



D. Brooke Harlow is Managing Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Highbridge Capital Management, a New York based hedge fund with approximately $30B of assets under management. Ms. Harlow is responsible for the corporate communications, marketing, branding, events and public affairs operations at the firm and serves as its spokesperson. Prior to joining Highbridge, Ms. Harlow was a Vice President of Investment Bank Marketing and Communications at JPMorgan for six years. During her time at JPMorgan, Ms. Harlow managed the media relations for the global credit, emerging markets and private equity businesses at the bank. She also served as head of marketing and communications for Latin America and as a member of the Latin American Investment Bank management committee. Ms.Harlow also previously worked for CNN in Mexico City and Washington, D.C. Ms. Harlow is a graduate of Yale University and a Rotary Scholar who studied at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico. 



Gene Stone A graduate of Stanford and Harvard, Gene Stone is a former Peace Corps volunteer, screenwriter, television producer, and journalist as well as a book, magazine, and newspaper editor for such companies as the Los Angeles Times, California, Esquire, Harcourt Brace, and Simon & Schuster. He has also ghostwritten more than thirty books (many of which were national bestsellers) for a diverse lot of people, including theoretical physicist Steven Hawking, Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer Tim Sanders, CNN Executive Vice-president Gail Evans. His most recent ghostwritten projects were The Engine 2 Diet, the national bestseller written with vegan firefighter Rip Esselstyn, and Start Something That Matters, written with TOMS shoes founder Blake Mycoskie (a #1 New York Times bestseller). Gene has also written many titles under his own name, including The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick, which has been translated into more than twenty languages; the #1 New York Times bestseller Forks Over Knives; the #1 Washington Post bestseller The Bush Survival Bible; and The Watch, the definitive book on the wristwatch.

Anthony "Tony" Rossabi is Senior Vice President, Global Carrier Solutions, Tata Communications, part of the $65B Tata Group. Mr. Rossabi is responsible for leading global carrier solutions and business development initiatives for Tata Communications. Prior to joining Tata Communications in June 2006, Mr. Rossabi was Executive Director of International Business Development for Level3 Communications.  He was responsible for managing the international group, supervising bilateral negotiations for data and voice services with PTTs and developing marketing and exchange strategies.

With over a decade of telecommunications experience, Mr. Rossabi has previously held a number of senior management positions. He was Director of International Business Development, Voice and Data Product Development for BellSouth Long Distance from 2001 until 2003. Before 2001, Mr. Rossabi served as Vice President, International Business Development and Global Network Purchasing for Telnext Communications, Inc., where he established a fiber and satellite network that spanned Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe.  Prior to this position, Mr. Rossabi was the Director of Network Purchasing for Justice Telecom Corporation in California.

Mr. Rossabi holds two Masters Degrees; one in Public Administration from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University; and a second in Business Administration from The Johnson School of Management at Cornell University.  Prior to entering Telecommunications, Mr. Rossabi worked as an Assistant District Attorney in New York City at the Kings County District Attorney’s office.

Board of Advisors

Benedict C. Nwomeh, MD, MPH is the SOS Director of Education and Training, is an Associate Professor of Surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and attending pediatric surgeon at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA. His medical training was at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, where he graduated with MBBS (Honors).  Also, he holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the Ohio State University.

He began his residency training in surgery at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and then at several institutions in the UK, including Queen’s Mary University Hospital, London and Hope Hospital, Salford (Manchester). Subsequently, he moved to the US and completed a general surgery residency program at the Medical College of Virginia of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Richmond, VA. He spent two additional years as Research Fellow at VCU’s Laboratory of Tissue Repair. Finally, he completed a pediatric surgery fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of the University of Pittsburgh in 2003.

Dr. Nwomeh is a fellow of several colleges including the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, American College of Surgeons, American Academy of Pediatrics, and West African College of Surgeons. As the Chair of the Global Affairs Committee and subsequently Chair, West African Task Force of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS), he led several training missions to West Africa. He is a member of the Committee on Global Academic Surgery (CAGS) of the Society of University Surgeons (SUS) and currently the Chair, Information Technology Committee of the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA). He was recently President of the Humera Surgical Society.

Dr. Nwomeh’s main interest is in the education of students, residents, and patients. He is the Director of Surgical Education at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Associate Director of the Pediatric Surgery Residency Program at The Ohio State University. His most recent co-edited book, Pediatric Surgery: A Comprehensive Textbook for Africa was published in 2011.

Kathleen M. Casey, MD, FACS is the founding director of the Operation Giving Back program (www.operationgivingback.org) at the American College of Surgeons since 2004. Operation Giving Back reflects the humanitarian tenets central to the profession of surgery and was created to facilitate outreach to underserved surgical patients in both domestic and international arenas through education, training, service, and advocacy.  Previously, Dr. Casey served eight years as a general surgeon in the U.S. Navy, achieving the rank of Commander. She was awarded the Humanitarian Service Medal for her contributions in Guatemala following the devastation of Hurricane Mitch. A Massachusetts native, she received a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, taught high school chemistry and physics, and worked at the Boston Museum of Science before matriculating to Dartmouth Medical School.  She completed her general surgery training at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, WA.  Dr. Casey has published articles, authored and co-authored chapters, and presented at national and international meetings on the importance of surgery in global health and the impact of surgical humanitarian outreach. Her contributions have been recognized by the AMA with the Nathan Davis International Award and by the International College of Surgeons with the Surgical Volunteerism and Humanitarian Award.

Mark A. Hardy, MD, FACS is Auchincloss Professor of Surgery, and until recently was Vice Chairman and Residency Program Director of the Department of Surgery, and is Director Emeritus of the Transplant Centre, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and NY Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. He was President of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons in 1994 and served as Councillor of the Transplantation Society (International) twice for three 3 year terms. He now serves as Director of the NY Islet Resource Centre. He is an Editor of Transplantation and has published more than 330 articles on subjects varying from surgical techniques to basic immunology. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of numerous surgical and scientific societies including American Surgical Association, Society of Clinical Surgery and American Association of Immunology. He has been awarded Honorary Fellowship in the Polish Surgical Society and Honorary Doctorates at Hallym University in Korea and at Warsaw University in Poland. He has served as a visiting Professor in some 50 institutions and delivered over 15 eponymous lectures worldwide.

His professional scientific career has revolved around transplantation and transplantation biology, with a major interest in the immune responses in induction of tolerance including alteration of donor immunogenicity and of antigen presentation. His most recent focus has been on cellular transplantation with emphasis on islet transplantation. His clinical interests have been in transplantation and vascular surgery.   He is a former Director of Vascular Surgery and Transplantation at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and former Director and Founder of Transplantation at NY Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the Founding Director and former President of the New York Organ Donor Network and former Director and member of the Board of Directors of UNOS. He has received a number of prizes for his work, including the NIH Scholar Award early in his career. He is the editor of one of the first books on Xenotransplantation and another on Organ Replacement in Diabetes Mellitus. In addition to his work in transplantation, in the earlier part of his career he made several contributions to the development of prosthetic vascular grafts and the development and studies of biologic function of thymic hormones, both experimentally and clinically. He continues to focus on issues in surgical education, international health care and education, and is the Director of the nationally acclaimed Annual NY Surgery Board Review Course. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Hallym-Columbia International Surgical Education Fund which he helped to create to support international exchanges of faculty between underdeveloped and developed countries.

Susan I. Brundage, MD, MPH, FACSDr. Susan I. Brundage was recruited to the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine in 2009 as Section Chief in the Division of Acute Care Surgery and Director of the Surgical Critical Care Unit at NYU Langone Medical Center/Tisch Hospital. Dr. Brundage is an academic surgeon internationally recognized as an expert in trauma surgery and critical care based on her reputation as an outstanding clinician combined with prominent and practice-defining publications in surgical outcomes research. Dr. Brundage is completely committed to Excellence in Care of the Traumatically Injured and Critically Ill Patient as well dedicated to Outcomes Research, and Educational Efforts both at home in the United States and on an international scale.

Natacha Weiss is President of American Friends of the Bambi Homes Colombia, a foundation she founded in the United States for abandoned children in Colombia. From 1997 to 2000, she served as an advocate for Refugees International in the Great Lakes Region of Africa and in West Africa. Citing her videotaped interviews, The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune published a front-page story documenting the mutilation campaign in Sierra Leone. Natacha’s work experience includes missions to Guatemala and Mexico for UNHCR; DRC for the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies; and Colombia for Help for Children. She also worked with American Friends Service Committee and the AIDS program of the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies. Natacha was born in Toronto, Canada, and grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. She has a BA (Honors) in International Relations and Psychology with an emphasis on Refugees Studies from Webster University. She is fluent in English, French, Spanish and German. Natacha is a board member of Refugees International since 2004; American Friends of the Bambi Homes Colombia since 2001; and Help for Children since 1996. Natacha is married with two children and lives in New York City.